Edward Winter's Chess Explorations (50)

11/13/2010 – Aron Nimzowitsch mated Simon Alapin in 18 moves, but the books contradict each
other as to where and when this famous brilliancy was played. Did it occur in Carlsbad,
Riga, St Petersburg or Vilnius? And in 1911, 1912, 1913 or 1914? The Editor of
Chess Notes also
casts doubt on the frequent suggestion that it was Nimzowitsch's favourite game.

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As regards contemporary publications, Mr Carter pointed out the following on
page 298 of The Year-Book of Chess 1914 edited by M.W. Stevens (London,
1915):

And from page 63 of volume one of Schachjahrbuch 1914 by L. Bachmann
(Ansbach, 1914):

We added that page 206 of the July 1914 Deutsche Schachzeitung reproduced
the same notes to the game, ‘welche nach Beendigung des allrussischen
Meisterturniers als freie Partie in St. Petersburg gespielt worden ist’.
A question asked, and not yet answered, is whether the Riga publication specifically
stated that the miniature was an informal game played after the end of the All-Russian
Masters’ Tournament in St Petersburg. That event took place from 4 to
31 January 1914 (new style), and it would be curious indeed to find that the
Nimzowitsch v Alapin game was thus played in St Petersburg in 1914, an option
not mentioned in any of the books listed by Mr Carter.

The original edition of Mein System (Berlin, 1925) gave no venue or
date for the game. Nor did the Russian edition (Moscow, 1930). The algebraic
version of My System produced by Quality Chess Europe AB (Göteborg, 2007)
put Vilnius, 1912. The original English-language translator of My System,
Philip Hereford, co-authored with W.H. Watts Every Game Check Mate (London,
1932), and the Nimzowitsch v Alapin game appeared on page 85 (‘Carlsbad,
1911’). On page 164 of 200 Miniature Games of Chess (London, 1941)
J. du Mont gave the date as 1915, without specifying any location.

Aron Nimzowitsch

A further question arises from Irving Chernev’s publication of the game
in 1000 Best Short Games of Chess and The Chess Companion (pages
262-263 and 242 respectively). Both times he put ‘Riga, 1913’ and
stated that Nimzowitsch had called the game ‘The Pride of the Family’.
We asked in C.N. 6784 where that description originated.

In C.N. 6789 Javier Asturiano Molina (Murcia, Spain) noted that the ‘Pride
of the Family’ phrase appeared when Nimzowitsch presented the game, with
a different set of notes, on pages 160-161 of the 1 April 1925 issue of Kagans
Neueste Schachnachrichten:

This prompted us to suggest that Chernev was incorrect (e.g. on page 242 of
The Chess Companion, reproduced below) to interpret the ‘Pride
of the Family’ remark as an indication by Nimzowitsch that it was his favourite
game:

As shown above (Kagans Neueste Schachnachrichten), in his note to White’s
eighth move Nimzowitsch described the knight on d4 as the pride of the (white)
family. We thus read his heading to the game as a mere reflection of that annotational
remark, and not as a description of the game itself.

Simon Alapin

The question of where and when the game was played remains unresolved. In C.N.
6799 Vitaliy Yurchenko (Uhta, Komi, Russian Federation) mentioned that ‘St
Petersburg, 1914’ was given as the occasion in the 1974 and 1984 Russian
editions of Nimzowitsch’s My System, whereas in C.N. 6822 Jens
Askgaard (Fakse, Denmark) provided another, more specific, date for the game.
The Danish translation of My System (1976) had this description: ‘Frit
parti, spillet i St. Petersburg maj 1914’ (Casual game, played in
St Petersburg, May 1914).

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See also

12/30/2017 – The "King Salman World Blitz & Rapid Championships 2017" in Riyadh from Decemer 26th to 30th. At the half way point of the Blitz Championship, the defending champ Sergey Karjakin leads with 9 / 11. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is a half point back followed by Peter Svidler and a trio of Chinese: Wang, Ding and Yu on 8 / 11. In the Women's Pia Cramling has a full point lead with 9½ / 11. Watch live with Rounds 11 to 22 from 12:00 Noon CET (6:00 AM EST) on Saturday with commentary by E. Miroshnichenko & WGM K. Tsatsalashvili.

See also

12/6/2017 – Imagine this: you tell a computer system how the pieces move — nothing more. Then you tell it to learn to play the game. And a day later — yes, just 24 hours — it has figured it out to the level that beats the strongest programs in the world convincingly! DeepMind, the company that recently created the strongest Go program in the world, turned its attention to chess, and came up with this spectacular result.

Video

Former World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik liked to play the French and once described it as a 'difficult and dangerous opening'. But in this 60 minutes video IM Andrew Martin suggests an aggressive and little-used idea of the renowned attacking player GM Viktor Kupreichik to counter the French: 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Be3!?. Andrew Martin uses the games of Kupreichik to show why this line could catch many French aficionados unprepared and is very dangerous for Black. Attacking players will love this line and the unusual complications that it promotes.